Renaissance – the arts in competition by Barbara John

Social changes started in the late Middle Ages: painters, sculptors and architects began to be classed as artists. In the early days of the Renaissance, the arts started to compete with each other. Until then the fine arts had been subordinate to the artes liberales like music, but this was questioned by universally talented artists like Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) and Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). One key reason was the discovery of central perspective. This led to a close link between art and mathematics, as artistic composition was now subject to mathematical rules.

Alberti and Leonardo studied perspective intensively, and demanded enhanced status for the fine arts in their writings, particularly in relation to music.

Alberti was principally concerned with the arts’ competition between each other. He felt that painting should be allotted the highest status. As a humanistic scholar he insisted that painters should not just have artistic talent, but should also be taught all the free arts, above all geometry. In his theoretical treatise on painting «De Pictura» of 1435/36 he writes: «Hence painting enjoys such high esteem that its exponents, given the admiration accorded to their works, are almost inclined to think that they are to the greatest possible degree similar to God. And is it not further the case that painting should be deemed the teacher of all the other arts – or at least their outstanding adornment?” And Alberti goes on to write: «So: this art gives pleasure, if it is cultivated; it ensures esteem, wealth and eternal fame only if it is so cultivated that it reaches a high standing, Given this – as painting turns our to be the best and most honorable adornment of all things, worthy of free men, beloved equally of the learned and the unlearned – I require all the more emphatically of youth that is eager to learn that the may turn their efforts towards painting, to the greatest feasible extent.» Alberti, who rose to considerable fame as an architect in particular, applied musical numerical proportions to architectural construction. Famous examples are his designs for the churches of S. Francesco in Rimini (1453) and S. Andrea in Mantua (1470).

Leonardo raised the argument to a higher plane. He doubted the superiority of the artes liberales as opposed to the fine arts. His exemplary comparison of art and music led to a demand that art should enjoy equal status. As a universal scholar, he was knowledgeable in all fields. It is said that Leonardo even designed musical instruments, for example a silver lyre in the shape of a horse’s head for Prince Lodovico Sforza in Milan. He is also said to have been an outstanding musician. For his famous portrait of the Mona Lisa he arranged for music and singing during the sittings, to encourage the subject to look cheerful. In his now famous treatise «Il Paragone», Leonardo wrote in detail about the relationship between painting and music: «If you say that the non-mechanical sciences are the intellectual ones, that I say that painting is intellectual and that it, just as music and geometry consider the relationship between the continuous quantities, and arithmetic the relationship between the discontinuous quantities, painting considers all continuous qualities of the relationship between light and shade and with perspective, those of distances.» And further: «Music can be called nothing other than the sister of painting, as it is subject to hearing, as sense that comes after sight, and creates harmony by combining its well-proportioned and simultaneously appearing parts, though they are compelled to emerge and to fade away in a single or several tempos. These tempos enfold the well-fitting quality of the elements from which the harmony is composed, no differently from the way that the lines describe the elements of which the human beauty is composed. Painting towers over and dominates music, because it does not fade away immediately after it is created like unfortunate music, but, on the contrary, remains alive, and so something that in reality is nothing but a surface shows itself to be a living thing. Oh wondrous science, you keep the fragile beauty of mortal man alive, and it thus becomes

Ländliches Konzert (Giorgione)

more lasting than the works of nature, as these are subject to the remorseless changes of time, and of necessity become old. This science (painting) relates to the divine being as its works relate to the works of this being, and for his reason it is worshipped.»

The particular significance of mathematics as a common basis for music and fine art was addressed above all in marquetry work. From the late 15th century, the wooden cladding of choir stalls and scholar’s studies showed trompe-l’oeil-like still life compositions made up of mathematical instruments, musical instruments, books and views of architecture.

Artists vitae, like that of Giorgio Vasari, dating from the 16th century, repeatedly report on the musical talents of individual artists. One of these is the Venetian painter Giogione (1478–1511), a passionate lutenist whose divine singing and playing of music was held in such high esteem that he was invited to prestigious events staged by the nobility as a musician. He addressed music in his painting as well. Music is the central theme in one painting by Giorgione, the «Concert champêtre» (c. 1510, Louvre, Paris). The pastoral scene shows a lutenist resting in a meadow,turning to face a shepherd, and also nude woman playing a flute. On the left-hand edge of the picture a second naked woman is holding a jug over a stone trough. Giorgione, who was himself a passionate musician, is addressing the pastoral landscape as a place of musical inspiration here, where the urban musician is being given artistic inspiration by the divine muses and the shepherd. Another example of the secularization of music as a theme takes us to Rome and the late 16th century.

The Sounding Image ~ About the relationship between art and music—an art-historical retrospective view
Barbara John

Philippe Benichou, also known as Eric Stone, is a French-American artist currently living in Bédoin, Mont Ventoux, France. Born in France in 1957, his mother, Arlette Oger, and his uncle, Jean Oger, were recognised artists in France. Philippe is also a highly respected figure within the performing arts field as an actor, voice artist and director. He’s the original founder of the Hollywood Actors Studio where he has taught and lectured on acting, creativity and artistic self-expression since 1989. Philippe formally studied with well-known art educator and sculptor Francis Coelho, in San Francisco, CA. Exhibitions of his work have taken place worldwide including those at MOCA Museum of Computer Art in New York and his paintings are found in many public and private collections in the U.S. and Europe. He is the recipient of awards in United States for his artistic merit. He continues to study art as it relates to self-realization and the healing powers of color and abstract compositions.

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